Anyone having Problems with the 396 Update?

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rhutch

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Anyone having problems with the new 396 update and Fleetnet. My 396 now hangs after every transmission and won't scan.

Problem solved, it seems the squelch now has more of an effect than before its been on 1 for almost 3 years now it needs to be on 3, but it works great that the little bit of noise at the ends of some transmissions is gone comletely.
 
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exkalibur

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The new firmware upgrade made adjustments to the squelch and volume controls. It made the bottom few values (IE, 1, 2, 3, 4) much more like an analog control. The result of this is that you might need to re-adjust things as you've noticed. Once I put the new firmware on my radio, I had to change from level 2 to level 3 of volume to listen on earphones, but it's nice having the additional level.
 

rhutch

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Thanks I found the same thing, I just about crapped my pants when it stuck on every transmission. I do have to say the Fleetnet has never sounded better. Haven't done any tweaks with the AGC yet.
 

exkalibur

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I've got the following AGC settings (as posted by Shaun in another thread) and have found the audio to be VERY close to that of a commercial Motorola radio - vastly better than the "default" settings.

Analog AGC:
Response Time: -3
Reference Gain: -2
Gain Range: +11

Digital AGC:
P25 Response Time: -7
P25 Reference Gain: +3

Give those a shot and I think you'll find a superior audio quality increase. This is assuming the newest firmware update.
 

jambo

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exkalibur said:
I've got the following AGC settings (as posted by Shaun in another thread) and have found the audio to be VERY close to that of a commercial Motorola radio - vastly better than the "default" settings.

Analog AGC:
Response Time: -3
Reference Gain: -2
Gain Range: +11

Digital AGC:
P25 Response Time: -7
P25 Reference Gain: +3

Give those a shot and I think you'll find a superior audio quality increase. This is assuming the newest firmware update.

How the heck do you change those settings.
 

EJB

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Thanks to all who posted here about the update. The settings tweaks suggested by Mike, Rdutch & others here were extremely helpful.
I will throw on my headphones & try it out but to me it sounds that the analog & P25 comms can be listened to at the same volume without getting blown away by the harshness of the P25 comms and the low quality of the analog MOH comms that I did not like on earlier scanners (296) and the 396 before the update.
 

MetalCarnage

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Mmmm

installed the new update for the 396 finall, all i can say is MMMMM, P25 is clear, never seen Error rates of 0 before, lol...i am very impressed with Unidens work, makes the 396 a much better scanner :)
 

gwtc199

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Just did my update, I find the audio a whole lot better, less distortion at low signal strength. The only problem I had was that it took the scanner a few minutes to pick up the Control Channel for Fleetnet, but after that its been clear sailing
 

rhutch

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Just did one of my two 996, and it also went smoothly, and seems to be working great.
 

MetalCarnage

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Anyone know how to set the P25 level with the new firmware? I went to set it and it doesnt matter if i am at 0 through to 20, i get Err to = 0-1.....i guess i will have to venture farther from the tower and get a weaker signal to set it
 

bpsmicro

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MetalCarnage said:
Anyone know how to set the P25 level with the new firmware? I went to set it and it doesnt matter if i am at 0 through to 20, i get Err to = 0-1.....i guess i will have to venture farther from the tower and get a weaker signal to set it
You don't. As it says in the release notes, it's now fully automatic and the menu item is just a "placeholder" and not used anymore. I'd expect a future release will remove that menu item, but it's in there for backwards compatibility with the various PC software packages (and the documentation).

Brad.
 

jambo

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And for the rest of you, thanks a bunch for the info and link you posted.

I haven't used my 396 for some time now, but i figured i'd take it out , dust it off, install the new firmware, and see if it made any improvements at all. So far can't see that it did anything but will give it some more time.
 

Saint

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Update

jambo said:
And for the rest of you, thanks a bunch for the info and link you posted.

I haven't used my 396 for some time now, but i figured i'd take it out , dust it off, install the new firmware, and see if it made any improvements at all. So far can't see that it did anything but will give it some more time.

:) Hi Jambo, Good luck with the update, I hope it will make the 396 work better for you, I'm waiting to get my 396 back fron RadioWorld in Toronto , it's being fixed and I hope when I do the update on my 396 I will see a big difference in the sound on the Fleentnet system and also I was having some problems with listening to Scat Systems with weak signals, so I hope this will be resolved with the update when I get to do it. Anyway let us know how you make out after the update is installed.
Steve
 

jambo

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Saint said:
:) Hi Jambo, Good luck with the update, I hope it will make the 396 work better for you, I'm waiting to get my 396 back fron RadioWorld in Toronto , it's being fixed and I hope when I do the update on my 396 I will see a big difference in the sound on the Fleentnet system and also I was having some problems with listening to Scat Systems with weak signals, so I hope this will be resolved with the update when I get to do it. Anyway let us know how you make out after the update is installed.
Steve


So far after updating I don't see any change what so ever in the audio quality on the P25 systems here. However I do see some improvement with the Astro digital system here. So it looks like they did make some improvements on the receiving end of things for the EDACS systems. The P25 systems decode alright, but the audio still sounds like crap. My Pro 96's audio on the same P25 system and Astro system puts the 396 to shame. So it looks like I'll be buying GRE products from now on.
 

mikewazowski

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jambo said:
So far after updating I don't see any change what so ever in the audio quality on the P25 systems here. However I do see some improvement with the Astro digital system here.

In this case, Astro = P25 system. No difference.
 
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